She looked like she was bawling during Heaven.. made me tear up, especially as I was already tearing up as she sang Dearest.

You're not getting the ideas of CDLs. There are a lot of people who prefer CDL to her tours because CDLs usually have wider tracklist

OMG! What makes you think that Marionette in Asia Tour wasn't live?!
With all those random off-key notes which were different each concert...
Talking about playback, it was Decision, which had PERFECT pitch, not Marionette which was veery far from perfection. And Ayu tends to use perfect-pitched playback like in Step you during old CDLives.

The fact that both Marionette performances we got from AT08 had exactly the same vocals, there was absolutely NO micnoice(which doesn't happen with that type of mic) and ther choreo seemed to have no effect on her though her voice was very bad at that time. She might have sang Marionette live for some concerts, but I am nearly positive the ones we got recorded weren't...

Both concerts we got were edited... They should be no parameter to define how she sounded and if she sang live...

My opinion was based mostly on bootlegs from several dates in China and they were different and had off-key notes.

Indeed. You can't trust edited TV or DVD version. Only CDLives and concert bootlegs count.
It was sad that Dream on was horrible. Ayu's voice was so tired she couldn't hit any note at all.

Just because she sings off key in a prerecording doesnt mean anything lol

Its extremely obvious that either the song wasn't sung live, or that in the editing, they completely put another vocal over her voice.

In any case, happy about the marionette at CDL~

Thank you, people are really overprotective whenever someone says Ayu and playback in one sentence, I still really, really loved Marionette at AT08, I am just convinced that was we hear was NOT what she sang on the dates. So I was even happier to see it again at CDL1011 :)

i was really upset with the end of the concert.....

with do it again as one of my favorite songs... all she said was

"dance dance dance do it again" and "sing sing sing do it again"

she didn't even sing the song!!

Yeah, sure! She made several prerecordings with different random off-key notes, right? :-) I higly doubt that.
Though nobody can be 100% sure but as I said when she uses playback it's flawless recording like in Step you or Angel's song with no single flat note.
And talking about DVD I'd say that they just fix her vocals with a software similar to Melodyne or Auto-tune and I tend to always hear the most obvious correction parts so of course it sounds different from actual live but it doesn't mean that they "replace" her vocals.

Okay, I admit... I was pissed off when I thought Ayu butchered my favorite song of the moment, Last angel. But I think the combination of the bad speakers on this particular computer, the bad quality of the video itself and the fact that she did sound a little rough made the performance sound worse than I initially thought! I really want the DVD though because they will have fixed all that xD;

so is this the review thread? idk which one to use lol but ok.

WOW
so ok I'm finally watching it now in the HD file and holy **** ok. the clowns are annoying and IMO Last Angel sounded really bad, but I absolutely love the way it was performed with all the lights, dramatic movements, etc. amazing. but ok woah woah woah.. I'm just sitting here still gasping in amazement at "is this LOVE?". that performance is like.. wow. most impressive performance I've seen from her since probably that a-nation 08 performance of ASFXX with the rain. so amazing. Duty was really good too. still need to watch the rest but I just needed to express how I felt about "is this LOVE?". I am so amazed.

I think we should look at the example for I Am... from last year's CDL.
I think we all agree that it's lipsync because her mouth was caught in different position as the vowel, and as Japanese speaker, I can say it was impossible for that sound to come from that mouth shape.
However, I Am... was far from perfect recording... it was flat in the chorus, but it was still almost surely a lipsync.

Artists who lipsync like Ayu aren't lipsyncing because they want to sound perfect. They are probably lipsyncing because they know if they sing high songs like I am, they won't be able to continue because they're straining their voice. However, I am was great as a performance, it had the right mood to start the CDL, I think that's why she wanted it to be included.

And I think that lipsyncing doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. If the recording is not perfect, but the performance atmosphere is still created, then isn't just fine?? LOL

My full review since I finally finished watching it! I'll keep it simple and break it up into 3 parts.

The bad (I definitely think need a lot of fixing on DVD lol):
Last Angel
Endless Sorrow
CAROLS
Thank U

The good:
HEAVEN
Together when...
Dearest
Duty
Bold & Delicious
Dream ON
all the staples

The OMGSOAMAZING:
is this LOVE?
Marionette
Free&Easy
Mirrorcle World
SEVEN DAYS WAR
Love Song
Virgin Road (acoustic version)
MOON (acoustic version)
do it again

She did mess up vocally in some parts, but when she sounded good, she sounded REALLY good. Some parts I kept thinking I was watching the touched up DVD version or something. I kept expecting "ok, she's going to have trouble with this part coming up and it's probably going to sound horrible" but she wound up sounding just fine. I was pleasantly surprised! Her energy was INSANE too. It must have been amazing to be there in person. If some of these songs sound this good on the TV version, I can't imagine how great they'll be on the DVD. now I can't wait for it to be released on DVD (and please bluray..)

a bit of a stupid question right here, but i'm curious:

is the countdown on the 31st of december really happening at midnight?

i read in a previous thread that the concert on the 30th was held in the evening, but they still had a countdown (which is a bit strange to me). so as i see it, the performance on the day before newyears is more of a final rehearsal for the next day.

From here and after - only my humble opinion and nothing more.

Just finished watching the TV-rip of this CDL, and I can't say anything except "meeeh".

Her vocals (well, what I can hear from the TV-rip tbh) are terror and horror for me. My beloved songs - itL?, MW, Marionette - sounded horrible, I'd rather forget about these performances at all (AT'06 and AT'08 will live in my memory forever).

The tracklist still seems to me pretty random, weird and short. I can't help the feeling of "rush-rush-rush". And though the stage was really cool and fresh, its high potential wasn't unleashed. The same thing is with Ayu's outfits - they look crude.

The whole show is like a broken mirror for me: supposed to be glance and epic but didn't reach the goal.

I disliked this concert very much, but despite that fact I'm quite sure that AT'11 will be great and will correct the mistakes of the CDL 10-11. At least I hope it will :)

I actually kind of found this to be a boring concert. I watched Last angel, is this LOVE?, Duty. Then I skipped to the love medly thing she did, and then I just stopped. I thought the track list was just ok, her vocals were ok, and everything about it was just ok, and the clowns annoyed the **** out of me. I'm probably going to just not watch the entire thing.

finally watching this...whats up with the clowns...

Haha, I'm sooo sure that I am... was live instead :-)))
There was no reason to start playback from the very first song. It does sound like live and if you noticed there were sound problems when the voice volume was too low in the first refrain. I have watched this performance many times both now and before and never noticed any wrong lips movemens. Could you please tell me the exact moment?
And I do agree with you that singing few song playback during long show isn't a crime and her voice needs rest too.